


Insomnia

by angelkat



Series: The Wee Compendium of Sweet Ginger [3]
Category: The Adventures of Puss in Boots (Cartoon)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-26
Updated: 2018-11-26
Packaged: 2021-02-26 02:42:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,382
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21806059
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angelkat/pseuds/angelkat
Summary: In which Puss plays the guitar.
Relationships: Puss/Dulcinea
Series: The Wee Compendium of Sweet Ginger [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1571299
Kudos: 4





	Insomnia

**Author's Note:**

> this is the piece i imagine puss playing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kiH5EQIlkSE

It was on the tenth night of his stay in San Lorenzo when she first found out about it.

It happened way back then. But she recalled the little details as clearly as crystal glass. Details like how late in the night it was. How cold the breeze was. How the darkness has been chased away by the glittering starlight. How she’d been so tired from the day’s activities, yet how she couldn’t sleep no matter what happy thought she tried to conjure. How even reading the _Compendium of Factes and Funne_ for perhaps the thousandth time in her life wouldn’t lull her to precious, precious sleep.

She could remember how she’d decided to just give up her endless tossing and turning, because there was no way she could sleep now she’d finally acknowledged how awake she truly was.

She could remember how, after tossing her book back on its rightful place over her drawer, she’d just laid there on her bed—her bright blue eyes, wide-awake and a stark contrast to the surrounding darkness, staring blankly at the ceiling.

She could remember pondering if her hatred of Jack Sprat was the reason she couldn’t sleep, just so she had more reason to malign the obnoxious jerk—she’d met the despicable degenerate earlier that day after all, and the spite in her heart still burned fresh.

She could remember how she’d sighed and decided to just resign herself to it. She’d finally leapt from her bed and let her bare feet softly pad over the woolly carpet that blanketed her room. She’d snatched a robe from its peg on the wall and wrapped it around her over her nightdress before she stepped out the balcony of her room, a cool breath of night wind splashing over her face the moment she was outside.

She’d leaned over the railing and looked over her town in contemplative silence. Day was a dress that fit San Lorenzo perfectly, but night made it _sparkle_. 

She sighed. A week had already passed since the protection spell had been broken, and to be honest, she’d been feeling a bit antsy—maybe that was the reason for her unrest. It was a new emotion to her, after all. To have everything she’d ever valued suddenly exposed to the dangers of the outside world, to have it stripped bare of all protection, it made her feel a bit…

Not that she doubted the ability of Puss in Boots. She had faith that he was a man of his word—she trusted him with her whole heart that he would not turn his back on them, that he will do everything to protect them. It was just that…

She worried.

And not only for San Lorenzo.

She shivered as the cold seemed to creep up her spine. Only that afternoon, she and the children had prepared a little adventure for Puss—something that had to do with evil princesses, castles, and evil mages, an adventure that quickly escalated into a dangerous fight against a giant amphibian monster with a fake princess dangling from the stalk that grew out of its forehead. Dulcinea chuckled at the memory of it.

But her little happy reprieve immediately dampened when her thoughts went back to Puss in Boots.

And she was back to worrying.

She wasn’t certain how long she’d been standing there, just leaning against the banister looking up at the stars. The moon was there—crescent, thin, a shining sliver of silver—and the stars, as usual, beamed their brightest. Night truly was beautiful in San Lorenzo, and she wondered why she’d never attempted to break the rules of her sleep cycle to witness its spellbinding allure.

If only it could give her a peace of mind, then it would have been perfect.

She’d closed her eyes in resignation for what was probably the hundredth time that night and decided to go back to her room. She’d just seen a faint dark grey colour lining the horizon, and while the sky still shone with stars, she doubted she can survive through the morning if she didn’t sleep now. Besides, she still had a class to teach that morning, chores to finish, kids to take care of. But, it was just as she’d turned around when…

She heard it.

_Guitar?_

It started out slow. Hesitant, even. A few, gentle finger strokes, each crystalline note twinkling like a star. Every softly thrummed string quivered, singing unspoken words, and the cool breeze brought the melody to her ears.

It…calmed her.

It didn’t take her long to realize, after curiously peeking over the garden or the plaza, that her invisible companion wasn’t anywhere below her—whoever this person was, he or she was playing the guitar from above the orphanage, on the roof.

Specifically, above _her_ room.

She leaned to the side of her balcony to get a glimpse of who it was—the moon was just a crescent, but it shone quite brilliantly, and the light was perfectly angled so that the shadows fell clearly on the left side of the shoe building. 

And so, when her eyes landed on the shadow cast upon the left side of the orphanage, she had no idea why she was so surprised.

Because there, on the floor, was the silhouette of a certain leather-clad ginger cat, seated on the orphanage’s rooftop. There was a guitar in his arms, his entire body moving rhythmically in time with his strums. He played the song so, so softly, gently, quietly, as if he was afraid that he will rouse the rest of the town from their slumber if he played it too harshly. For all his bravado and swaggering show of toughness, she never would have thought he was capable of this—of such tenderness, and rawness, and affection, for the guitar.

She never would have guessed that he even played the guitar at all!

She smiled to herself and decided to stay. She listened, her paws holding her robes around her, her eyes closed as she let the breeze ripple over her fur, her elbows leaning against the banister, letting the music fill something empty in her that she never knew existed. And then, after what seemed like eternities, his song faded into the wind. She revelled in the silence that followed for several moments after the performance, after which she cracked an eye open and looked down at her left.

His silhouette was no longer there, and she assumed he’d already gone his way for bed.

The next day, she woke up nearly around the afternoon—just around the usual time Puss himself got out of bed when no thief managed to break into the town earlier in the mornings. She’d been horrified at first, of course, realizing that she’d missed most of her chores _and_ her class, but after a moment, she also realized that she felt, well…rested, for seemingly the first time this week. So she let it slide, but she made a mental note that this shall only happen once—it would be remiss of her if she let the children spend a day again without learning at least something, and if she even attempted to conduct her class during the afternoon, the children would only want to play.

Toby still had a ways to go when it came to the alphabet.

Señora Zapata, well, she found it suspicious that she overslept, considering that that never ever happened before—and especially even more suspicious, the fact that she’d woken up around the time Puss in Boots woke up. Dulcinea deflected the señora’s attempts to draw something out of her by smiling sweetly while inching to the door and getting out of there as fast as she could. She went to the cantina to have her breakfast—well, lunch, it seemed—and was delighted when Pajuna served her some paella to go with her leche.

And then Puss sat at the stool beside her.

He’d been yawning as he weakly demanded Pajuna his leche. The Scottish barkeeper had only rolled her eyes at her customer’s unapologetic sleepiness, and Dulcinea had giggled. He snapped his gaze to her then, and when Dulcinea only smiled at him knowingly, Puss arched an eyebrow at her. She decided she would keep quiet about it, though—she didn’t want him to think that he woke her up in the middle of the night, and she definitely didn’t want him to stop playing.

At least now she understood why he always overslept.

That very night, she found that she couldn’t sleep, again—so, once more, she walked out her balcony, hoping the previous night would happen again…and it did.

And the night after that.

_And_ the night after that.

Soon, she discovered, that night after night after night, it never failed. It almost seemed like his regular routine, and Dulcinea found herself clinging to it, making his secret guitar-playing session a routine of her own, even if her part in it was only to listen. Of course, with that, she had to adjust her sleeping schedule—she’d still wake up early in the morning to teach the children and accomplish her chores, but then she’d take a really, really long afternoon siesta after lunch, while the children played. She’d wake up again just in time for dinner, and though Señora Zapata would give her strange looks as if demanding an explanation for her new sleeping habit, she never brought it up, which Dulcinea was thankful for.

Every night after she’d tucked the children to bed and read herself a tale from one of her books in the quietude of her room, she’d find that she can’t sleep so she’d go out into the balcony. She’d only have to wait for several moments of calm before finally, her waiting would be rewarded by a gentle melody gracing her ears. He’d begin to play his song to the stars scattered across the cosmos, and Dulcinea only had to close her eyes and she’d easily be able to imagine that he’s playing the song for her.

There was…something that she began to notice about his playing, though.

He played the same song every single night.

Not that it was…wrong, per se. She simply found it strange. Soon, she found herself grappling for answers. Maybe he just didn’t know how to play any other song other than this? But, that was unlikely; his playing had flair, and she could easily deduce just from listening that as simple and calming the melody was, it still sounded difficult to play.

So, maybe this was his favourite song? Ah, perhaps, that would be quite obvious, but even if something were one’s favourite song, they wouldn’t play it this much with such obsession!

Well, then, maybe he found the song as calming and tranquil as she found it? Well yes, for the very same reasons Dulcinea even listened to him every single night without fail, maybe he can’t sleep as well, and this particular song healed his anxieties.

She could only speculate, and she knew she didn’t have any right to pry—it was none of her business, and she should be perfectly fine with that. She was just a listener from the background, and she should be perfectly content to be allowed the simple pleasure of listening to the music his heart seemed love so dearly.

But she kept wondering why.

During the day, slowly but surely, they were becoming close friends—they’d talk, do things together, share things about themselves. And during the night, she’d listen to him play, without him ever knowing. 

She waited for the day that he’d tell her about how he played the guitar, about how much he loved the song, about how, during the night, he’d play it right before he went to bed. She waited, but…

It never came.

She slowly came to the realization that there were still so many things she didn’t know about him, that he kept secret from her. And she knew she didn’t have the right to feel this way, but it…saddened her, to a degree.

She wished that he’d confide in her the same way she confided in him.

She’d decided to be sneaky once, by asking him if he had a favourite song. But, after a moment of astonished blinking, he’d merely smiled and only left it at that.

It grated on her, just a little. He was her friend, after all! Why wouldn’t he open up? Did he think she was…unworthy? Well, he might just be a little unready to share with her, but hadn’t they been friends for long enough? Didn’t he trust her? She wanted to know everything about him, just as she’d told him everything about her. She wanted to know what colour he liked, what patterns he saw in the sky, what insect he feared, what flower he found lovely, what dreams he had when he was young—

And why this song.

There was one night, though, when he suddenly stopped his playing just halfway through the song, which she’d memorized by heart by now. Dulcinea had immediately pawed her own mouth when she realized she’d been humming in the silence that followed the pause in his playing. Suddenly, she’d feared that maybe he _heard_ her humming—which she hadn’t even realized she was doing, oh, _fiddlefuff_ —and that this may be the last of her nightly guitar-listening ventures once he found out that she knew his secret.

But, she was wrong.

When she looked to the left side of her balcony and saw his silhouette projected clearly onto the plaza, the sight wrenched her own heart so badly it physically hurt, and suddenly she was so full of guilt for thinking about _herself_.

This…this wasn’t about Puss not trusting her, or thinking she was unworthy.

This was about a raw part of _himself_ , a wound that wasn’t yet ready to be touched.

She…shouldn’t be here.

So Dulcinea closed her eyes, wrapped her robe around herself, and stepped back inside her room.

She dreamt of silently witnessing a silhouette cry over his guitar, up the rooftops during the dead of night where he probably thought that only the stars could hear.

* * *

**3  
** _insomnia._


End file.
